And all of this, as well, Blaine realized with a start, was likewise stored in the mind of one human being, of one Shepherd Blaine, if he could only separate it and classify and store it and then could dig it out and put it to proper use.
Listening, Blaine lost all sense of time, lost all knowing of what he was or where he was or why he might be there, listening as a boy might listen to some stupendous tale spun by an ancient mariner from far and unknown land.
The room became familiar and the Pinkness was a friend and the stars were no longer alien and the far-off howling of the desert wind was a cradle song that he had always known.
It was a long time before he realized he was listening only to the wind and that the stories of far away and long ago had ceased.
He stirred, almost sleepily, and the Pinkness said: That was a nice visit that we had. I think it was the best that I have ever had.
There is one thing, said Blaine. One question —
If it is the shield, the Pinkness said, you needn’t worry. I took it away. There is nothing to betray you.
It wasn’t that, said Blaine. It was time. I — that is, the two of us — have some control of time. Twice it saved my life. . . .
It is there, the Pinkness said. The understanding’s in your mind. You only have to find it.
But, time —
Time, the creature said, is the simplest thing there is. I’ll tell you . . .
SEVENTEEN
Blaine lay for a long time, soaking in the feel of body, for now he had a body. He could feel the pressure on it, he could sense the movement of the air as it touched the skin, knew the hot damp of perspiration prickle along his arms and face and chest.
He was no longer in the blue room, for there he had no body and there was no longer the far-off sound of the desert wind. There was, instead, a regular rasping sound that had a slobber in it. And there was a smell, an astringent smell, an aggressively antiseptic odor that filled not only the nostrils, but the entire body.
He let his eyelids come up slowly against possible surprise, set to snap them shut again if there should be a need. But there was only whiteness, plain and unrelieved. There was no more than the whiteness of a ceiling.
His head was on a pillow and there was a sheet beneath him and he was dressed in some sort of garment that had a scratchiness.
He moved his head and he saw the other bed and upon it lay a mummy.
Time, the creature on that other world had said, time is the simplest thing there is. And it had said that it would tell him, but it hadn’t told him, for he hadn’t stayed to hear.
It was like a dream, he thought — thinking back on it, it had the unreal, flat-planed quality of a dream, but it had not been any dream. He had been in the blue room once again and he’d talked with the creature that was its habitant. He had heard it spin its yarns and he still retained within his mind the details of those yarns. There was no fading of the detail as there would have been if it had been a dream.
The mummy lay upon the bed swathed in bandages. There were holes in the bandages for the nostrils and the mouth but no holes for the eyes. And as it breathed it slobbered.
The walls were of the same whiteness as the ceiling, and the floors were covered with ceramic tile and there was a sterility about the place that shrieked its identity.
He was in a hospital room with a slobbering mummy.
Fear moved in on him, a sudden wash of fear, but he lay there quietly while it washed over him. For even in the fear, he knew that he was safe. There was some reason he was safe. There was some reason if he could think of it.
Where had he been? he wondered; where had he been other than the blue room? His mind went tracking back and he remembered where he’d been — in the willow thicket in the gully beyond the edge of town.
There were footsteps in the hall outside, and a man with a white jacket came into the room.
The man stopped inside the door and stood there looking at him.
“So you’ve come around at last,” the doctor said. “Just how do you feel?”
“Not too bad,” said Blaine, and actually he felt fine. There didn’t seem to be a thing the matter. “Where did you pick me up?”
The doctor did not answer. He asked another question. “Did anything like this ever happen to you before?”
“Like what?”
“Blacking out,” the doctor. “Falling into coma.”
Blaine rocked his head from side to side upon the pillow. “Not that I recall.”
“Almost,” the doctor said, “as if you were the victim of a spell.”
Blaine laughed. “Witchcraft, doctor?”
The doctor grimaced. “No, I don’t imagine so. But one never knows. The patient sometimes thinks so.”
He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I’m Dr. Wetmore,” he told Blaine. “You’ve been here two days. Some boys were hunting rabbits east of town. They found you. You had crawled underneath some willows. They thought that you were dead.”
“And so you hauled me in.”
“The police did. They went out and got you.”
“And what is wrong with me?”
Wetmore shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I haven’t any money. I can’t pay you, Doctor.”
“That,” the doctor told him, “is not of any moment.”
He sat there, looking at him. “There is one thing, however. There were no papers on you. Do you remember who you are?”
“Sure. I’m Shepherd Blaine.”
“And you live where?”
“Nowhere,” said Blaine. “I just wander around.”
“How did you get to this town?”
“I don’t somehow recall.”
He sat up in bed. “Look, Doctor, how about getting out of here? I’m taking up a bed.”
The doctor shook his head. “I’d like you to stick around. There are several tests—”
“It’ll be a lot of trouble.”
“I’ve never run across a case like yours,” the doctor said. “You’d be doing me a favor. There was nothing wrong with you. Nothing organically, that is. Your heartbeat was retarded. Your breathing a little shallow. Your temperature off a point or two. But otherwise all right, except that you were out. No way of waking you.”
Blaine jerked his head toward the mummy. “He’s in bad shape, isn’t he?”
“Highway accident,” the doctor said.
“That’s a bit unusual. Not many any more.”
“Unusual circumstance,” the doctor explained. “Driving an old truck. Tire blew when he was going fast. One of the curves above the river.”
Blaine looked sharply at the man on the other bed, but there was no way to tell. None of him was showing. His breath went slobbering in and out and there was a rasping to it, but there was no way to tell who he might be.
“I could arrange another room,” the doctor offered.